The Garage is empty

Just as the Prime Minister promises a new future, the past turns up like a soiled doily, that simply refuses to flush away.

Farage returns as a tired revamp of Dracula AD 72, proving as last time that there is no trusting this man whether he promises to resign or not. Is this “Farage the sequel”,”Farage returns”, “Farage 3” or “Farage forever”? No, after Brighton, this is a man whose tag is, “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water”! And the Farage mouth is again snapping at the anchorman. With this one difference- this is Farage without teeth. He sums up, as ever, the fate of his party.

The toothless, wizened, tired spectre of Farage. The empty shall of a wide-mouthed man. The garage with the door ajar and the sprightly jag gone.

For me, one of the entertaining aspects of the story is to see Paul Oakden, a man I knew as Farage’s henchman, lording it over the media as the UKIP chairman, desperate to square the circle that is Diane James. Oakden, once physically a pale reflection of Paul Nuttall, has embraced stubble above and below the hairline but he remains the same Oakden. What a long way he has come in such a short time! Only just 18 months ago, he was the man delegated to silence me. He was the man making promises on behalf of his leader that neither he nor Farage have so far honoured. I have long since given up hope that either will keep their word, and I fear I am not the only one.

Has no one told Farage about the boy who cried wolf? Resignation is a card you can play once. It is not a game of snap!

Thank God, then for Boris, who may not now lead the Conservatives, but who certainly put a spoke in the UKIP wheel and left it immobilised. It is a bike with a broken wheel, and today, without a viable saddle. Today, we see one more tumble in the slow-motion crash that has been Boris’s masterstroke! Boris took on the mantle of Farage: He might have feared it was poisoned and that like some Herculean hero, he would go down fighting, but he took that risk and went down in style, eclipsing Farage in every way. I think history will be kind to Boris, because after the current aborted resurrection, Farage, barely human, even after exposing himself in Brighton, leads a pitiful ghost of a party, with little aim, precious value and a heightened reputation for thuggishness and deceit at the highest level.

I joined UKIP because I feared a party led by Farage was one of the biggest dangers to the UK today and I could not sit idly by. I also felt that some of its aims were laudable enough, particularly its fondness for Grammar schools, though I have always been less comfortable with Brexit itself, but the die is now cast. Today, however, we celebrate the collapse of the party that set Brexit in motion. Who wants to lead this mess? Certainly not Diane James. And it is clear the party does not want Suzanne Evans, dumped unceremoniously last year; Stephen Woolfe was tricked out of the ballot only this year and the only sitting MP, a man of great principle, despite his ditching the party that made him electable in the first place, Douglas Carswell is himself as itchy as poisoned ivy. At their conference, fellow UKIPpers kept a safe distance even when he promised loyalty to the new leader. That did not last long! It is only when everyone doubts your allegiance that anyone ever expects you to pledge it.

So, while I might bemoan the loss of her majesty’s loyal opposition in the nonsense peddled by Mr Corbyn and his cronies, there is only one word that comes to mind about UKIP and it is Thatcher’s: “Rejoice!“ Simply rejoice!